Where can I go to cover a Seal Clubbing event?

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scubabob

You'll need permission from the Government to visit the hunt. Additionally, you won't be allowed to get within 10 meters of any activity, that includes just getting near a seal boat even if they aren't engaged in the hunt at the moment. It's for safety reasons. Some activists have tossed common sense out the window and have endangered themselves as well as the sealers so that buffer zone applies to everyone now.
Here's a link to a website that's fairly balanced, well informed and posts both sides of the issue. The author of the site may be able to shed some light on whom you need to contact to arrange media accreditation.
http://www.thesealfishery.com/

Fred C

Seal clubbing is not an event! It isn't a show! It isn't like a baseball game with fans cheering and booing. It is a hunt, a harvest, a very hard means to make a living, and control the seal population which, left unchecked, would grow to such size as to decimate the fish population.
You have a choice of being part of a protest group, and never getting to talk to harvesters, who make their living at this by the way, or being part of the harvest, and never getting to talk to protesters. Unless you are actively employed by a recognized news organization, what you want to do can't be done. There are no plane tickets, no buses, no tours, no hotels to stay in, no restaurants, only boats; sealer boats, protester boats, and Coast Guard boats.

By the way, the PETA videos are old, and not representative of the way the hunt is now conducted. It is strictly aimed to tug at the heartstrings so people will donate more money to the PETA bureaucracy, which has a budget of millions of dollars a year, but they spend very little of the money on animals. They are a fraud and a sham, and there are many other organizations that actually care more about animal welfare than bank balances.

*ajidamoon* the Eh team

I have witnessed a "clubbing" done first hand, in the traditional Native way. Its not at all how poachers do it. However, I agree with the poster above me. It is not an event. never announced.....so you will have a hard time finding out when one might take place. It is a traditional means of hunting. Outdated, yes, perhaps, but tradition is really all some Natives have left, and I don't think it should be taken from them.

kent_shakespear

seal season depends on the ice, and varies slightly from year to year. The Magdalen Islands of Quebec, or Newfoundland are good places. You might want to make connections there beforehand and have a relationship/dialogue with hunters rather than just showing up and being expected to be welcomed with open arms. Seal hunters already feel rather poorly-dealt-with by PETA and other activists; just showing up, they may assume you are going to be a disruptive influence. I'd start by joining a Newfoundland chat site or even posting an advert in a Newf. newspaper and/or on Kijiji or Craigslist. With a genuine rapport, you might be able to go with a hunter in a real setting rather than just a happenstance/snapshot event.

Rather than rely on whatever animal-rights groups are present, I'd wait to contact them until after your experience.

I'd also reach out to aboriginal hunters who will have an additional perspective on such harvesting.

kenoplayer

Your best bet is to contact the Department of Fisheries and Ocean in Ottawa and ask them for an observer's license to the next seal hunt in April of next year.

thinkingtime

So you are totally unbiased but you don't want to deal with anyone with a point of view. Presumably people who harvest seals have a point of view?

PS You might want to visit a commercial slaughterhouse for domesticated animals as a comparison.

Tong Sam Pah

You should seek out the appropriate support group and work with them to locate the event or site. Then you get to witness first hand. Working with them does not mean you got to subscribe to what they believe in. Just so you can find out where it is at.

sailthistles

i dont think seal clubbings are really a spectator sport, but if you really want to see one here is a video of seal clubbing
http://www.spike.com/video/clubbing-baby-seals/2667866
it is a PETA protest video, so at the end there is someone arguing their point, but the first minute or so is raw footage. its not pretty

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